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Reuters • Thursday February 13, 2014 7:02 AM

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Danish Jyllands Park Zoo said yesterday that it might put down one of
its giraffes, according to the Danish news agency Ritzau.

It would be the second such case this week at a zoo in Denmark. On Sunday, the Copenhagen Zoo —
to the disgust of animal lovers around the world —
slaughtered a giraffe named Marius. The Jyllands Park giraffe also is named
Marius.

Staff members at the Copenhagen Zoo have received death threats since the zoo killed the
18-month-old healthy male giraffe because the animal’s genes already were well represented in an
international breeding program that aims to maintain a healthy giraffe population in European
zoos.

Jyllands Park Zoo in western Denmark might put down its 7-year-old Marius if the zoo manages to
acquire a female giraffe, which is likely, zookeeper Janni Lojtved Poulsen told Ritzau. The zoo
also has a younger male called Elmer.

“We can’t have two males and one female. Then there will be fights,” Poulsen said.

She said that it might be possible to find another place for the giraffe to live, but the
probability is small. Like its namesake in Copenhagen, Jyllands Park Zoo’s Marius is considered
unsuitable for breeding.

“If the breeding-program coordinator decides that he should be put down, then that’s what we’ll
do,” Poulsen said.

She said that zoos in Denmark have been killing surplus animals for many years, and that the
wave of protests following Sunday’s killing in Copenhagen is not deterring Jyllands Park Zoo.

“Many places abroad where they do not do this, the animals live under poor conditions, and they
are not allowed to breed either. We don’t think that’s OK,” she said.

The giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo was dissected in front of crowds at the zoo, and afterward, some
of the carcass was then fed to other zoo animals and some was sent to research projects in Denmark
and abroad for study.

Poulsen said Jyllands Park Zoo has not considered whether it should carry out such a public
dissection.